In recent years, wireless-enabled electronic devices have become more pervasive. Historically, wireless capability may have been the near-exclusive domain of wireless telephones and pagers, but the category of wireless-enabled devices has grown to include several different device types including Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), gaming devices, audio players, video players, and more.
Many of these devices, from wireless telephones to portable audio players, have also become more feature-rich. With the increased availability of new features, services, and technologies, device use has become more complex and user interface strategy has become more important.
User-interface designers often develop and test many different interfaces in an effort to ensure that device users will be able to easily and quickly navigate through the “laundry list” of available options. The increasingly complex interfaces being developed today face the additional challenge of a relatively small display space. Presenting a single screen with all the available features represented by a unique icon, word or phrase may not be possible.
As such, a need exists for a better interface—one that presents a device user with an easy to use and timely technique for accessing desired features.